S. Worthen | Weblog

Blue roan is not reddish at all though? Not unless someone is mislabling darker red roans as blue roans. Blue roan is roan (intermingled white hairs, but not a horse going grey) on black, and looks blueish grey or purpley* at most (*in a far more more blue than red purple sort of way) All the blue roans I've ever known or seen pictures of were definitely not red. If they were they got labeled Red Roan or Strawberry Roan.

Red roan is Roan on bay.
I suppose on a dark bay might look almost like a reddish tinged blue roan. So I guess some of these might be refered to by some people (arguably incorrectly ;-) ) as blue roan, since the colloquial useage of horse colour terms doesn't always strictly follow the "proper" definitions of the colour terms labelled by genetic colour-base + modifiers
In fact - to underline the above about colloquial usage vs genetics as the basis for colours... Interestingly I see wikipedia claims this is called 'bay roan' but "Formerly, bay roans were lumped together with chestnut roans and both called "red roans." "

Whereas I. in the days of "formerly" I expect ;-) was taught that
Strawberry roan is roan on chestnut (and never "red roan is also roan on chestnut" it was always - if it has a black mane and tail and lower legs -> roan on bay -> red roan)